Amadeus plumps for Morgan

Amadeus, the online travel reservations giant, has lined up Morgan Stanley to handle a $12bn (£7.6bn) listing, while rival Travelport has lined up its banking team for a $2bn London flotation.

Morgan Stanley has emerged as the frontrunner for the Amadeus job after a series of pitches from banks in the past three weeks. Due to the size of the flotation, which is likely to take place in Spain as the group is based in Madrid, there are expected to be further appointments.

Owned by private equity giant BC Partners, Amadeus will be one of the world's biggest flotations this year.

One of the reasons Morgan Stanley has been lined up is that it did not pitch for the job at Travelport, the Blackstone-owned group that is based in the UK and the US.

UBS, Deutsche and Citi are understood to be three of the four banks that have been appointed. They were all part of the five-strong team that had lined up a Travelport listing in 2007 before the credit crunch postponed the move. The new bank is Barclays.